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Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh Card of the Day
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Reviewer's
Choice
Thanksgiving Day Special
Date Reviewed - 11.25.04 |
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ExMinion OfDarkness |
-Thankgiving Special -- Reviewer's Choice-
Royal Decree
I actually had to think for a while on this. There
were many cards I wanted to choose here but most had
reasons not to do them.
Thunder Dragon was done on Monday (which I honestly
would have picked for this slot had it not have
been.) Yata-Garasu, BLS, CED, and the staples are
not only too broken and too easy of a review, but
Yata and CED don't mean anything to Advanced Format
players. Dark Designator would have been a
candidate, but UDE has stated I can't have a friend
taking notes, or pull out a camcorder or sound
recorder after playing the card so that I can look
through the opponent's deck and copy their decklist
-- and since that's true, what's the point in using
it?
Finally I decided to bring everyone's attention to a
card that needs heavy re-review because of recent
changes to the Restriction List, Royal Decree.
Royal Decree is a Trap form of Jinzo -- basically,
it negates all other traps except itself. Before the
Ban list was implemented, it wasn't necessary at all
-- 3x MST, Harpie's, Heavy, and Breaker were more
than enough Magic/Trap destruction. With MST down to
1 and Harpie's gone out of Advanced, and no Witch to
search out Breaker, suddenly negating traps becomes
a viable card.
Decree can be chained onto another Trap card (as
long as it's not a counter-trap) so it can negate
Waboku, Mirror Force, Imperial Order, Sakuretsu
Armor, Call of the Haunted, etc. in chain. A player
who has Waboku down usually thinks they are
invincible for a turn. Royal Decree can be a Royal
Pain In The Ass in that scenario.
Decree can also be a preventative measure for an
assault on the next turn -- For example...if you go
first, you set Decree and do whatever else and end
turn...your opponent sets a bunch of M/Ts and does
whatever else and ends turn...you chain to their end
phase with your Decree. They can't activate anything
they set because it hasn't been down for a turn.
The downside: This card makes you extremely
vulnerable yourself. If you get into a bad
situation, you can't use any other Traps you may
have in your Deck to get out of it. If MST weren't
limited, one might consider chaining an MST onto
their own Decree to allow them to chain a Trap --
but with only 1, that isn't majorly viable.
But then again...a deck running Royal Decrees
generally won't run many other Traps.
I'm seeing the following Trap lineup very often in
an offense-based Advanced Format deck (meaning not a
Burn deck):
Traps: 8
3x Sakuretsu Armor
2x Dust Tornado/Magic Drain/Whatever
1x Call of The Haunted
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Ring of Destruction
A deck running Royal Decrees wmight reallocate those
cards as follows:
3x Royal Decree
1x Call of the Haunted
1x Torrential Tribute
2-3x Offerings to the Doomed
1-2x Nobleman of Extermination/Mobis the Frost
Monarch
In Advanced Format, hand size is important, but not
nearly as much as it is in Traditional. A playe can
actually afford to miss a draw phase as long as
they're not topdecking. That makes Offerings to the
Doomed a viable choice to replace Sakuretsu Armor.
Nobleman of Extermination allows a player who was
previously using Dust Tornadoes to have a way to get
rid of Traps, beside the MST, Breaker, and Heavy
they're already using.
In addition, Horus 8 + Royal Decree = one hard wall
to break through unless you can get an effect
monster out there.
Don't believe me that Decree's the next big thing?
Check eBay. Before Advanced Format was implemented,
Royal Decrees sold for around $100. They now sell
for between $160 and $200. The market doesn't lie.
Conclusion: If you have it, don't trade it (or just
give it to me, LOL.) If you don't have it, try to
rip a n00b for it, as you most likely won't want to
give full trade value for it.
Traditional Format: 4/5 (negation of Imperial, Call,
Mirror Force, Waboku, and Ring is pretty good.)
Advanced Format: 4.75/5 (negation of Traps with
little M/T removal that isn't in monster form is
wonderful.)
I'd like to wish just about everyone out there a
Happy Thanksgiving. Let's give thanks to the NetReps
for putting up with a lot of BS and idiocy, UDE for
keeping the game going and trying to move it into a
new direction, the veteran players for continuing to
create new deck ideas (for me to copy), the newbs
for being the next generation of players, and for
everything else that's gone well in our lives and
what may in the future.
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Snapper |
Being Thanksgiving, the reviewers have all been given
the chance to review whatever card they want today.
So, I decided I’d like to review one of my more
favorite cards. Pot of Greed would be too obvious.
Ceasefire has been reviewed recently. A Fiend
monster? Nah. Tyrant Dragon? I’d inadvertently make
it sound worse than it is. So that leaves me with
the mechanical looking Rock, CYBER JAR!!!
Stats: Put simply, Cyber Jar has nothing going for
him in the stats department. With 900 ATK and DEF,
it can of course be searched for by Witch if the
Black Forest, Sangan, and Mystic Tomato (the latter
not being advisable). The stats are relatively high
for a Flip Effect monster, but are still very low
for monsters overall. It’s a DARK monster, a fact I
greatly enjoyed back when Chaos was common and I had
been lucky enough to get both of the Chaos monsters
in booster packs. It’s also a Rock monster… Yeah.
Huzzah. Stats – Bad.
Effect: Cyber Jar has quite a few effects. The first
part of its effect is to destroy all monsters on the
field when flipped face-up. Can we say Dark Hole?
The second effect has both players pick up 5 cards
from the deck, show them to each other, and Special
Summon all Level 4 or Lower monsters to the field in
face-up Attack or face-down Defense Position. Now
that’s a few things right there; mass ‘drawing’, a
peak into your opponent’s deck and strategy, and the
ability to swarm. And finally, all cards not
summoned to the field are added to the owner’s hand.
Hand replenishing; a useful tool.
Now of course your opponent gets all of these
privileges as well, but who cares? You might, but
it’s Thanksgiving, so what I think is good enough
for me. As you may be able to tell, I love each and
every one of these effects very much. So much in
fact that I have (most likely unwisely) been using
Cyber Jar since the days of MRL, and have been
unable to part with it in any of my decks. Has it
worked against me at times you ask? Well, yeah. But
has it helped me an immeasurable amount of times?
You better believe it. Effect – Biasedly Stupendous
(and Realistically Great).
Combos: There aren’t a great deal of combos with
Cyber Jar. A few that come to mind is to have a
previously set Bottomless Trap Hole at the time that
Cyber Jar is flipped, and activate it when all the
monsters are summoned.
Doing so will remove all your opponent’s face-up
monsters with more than 1500 ATK from play. Another
combo is to have a Ground Collapse or two active
when Cyber Jar is activated, forcing your opponent
to send all Level 4 or lower monsters your opponent
has no room for on the field to the Graveyard.
And of course, Book of Moon + Book of Taiyou (or
just use Tsukuyomi) to reuse the effect of Cyber
Jar.
Usability: The only decks Cyber Jar wouldn’t work in
would be an Exodia Decks, a Stall Deck, or a deck
that focuses on controlling the field or the
opponent’s hand.
If you wanted my opinion, I’d say Cyber Jar should
at the very least be Side Decked everywhere. If you
wanted somebody else’s, they’d tell you the truth.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Advanced Format: 4/5. Useful. End of story.
Traditional Format: 4/5. Useful. End of story.
Overall: 4/5.
Art: 3.5/5. It definitely isn’t a Rock monster…
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Coin Flip |
Hurah for
fun days! I'm going to enjoy reading about my fellow
reviewers' favorite cards. Here's my current
favorite (in English, anyway).
Last Turn. I've been wanting to play Last Turn for a
while, mainly because I recently realized how
annoying a Last Turn First Turn Kill deck would be
(especially if it focused on tying all the time),
and how paradoxical the name is.
Well, let's go over a few cards this goes well with.
Non-Aggression Area. Discard a card and they can't
summon. Good game.
Waboku (eeevilll)
Jowgen the Spiritualist. Cough cough you can't beat
200 attack?
Last Warrior From Another Planet
DD Warrior Lady, as well as DD Assailant and DD
Warrior (when it comes out). You can choose to
either send out a monster that will be destroyed in
battle against my own, or have my monster remove
your own.
Spirit Reaper
Shining Angel (They'll have to kill all three
Shining Angels and then they'll have to contend with
a DDWL, and this can search out Jowgen or
DDWL)
As well, you can just Inspection, Solemn Judgment,
or Wall of Revealing Light yourself down to 1000.
That's the great part about this deck. It doesn't
care about LP. Include Upstart Goblin if you want.
Hell, it mixes well with the recently announced
Cyber Stein (summon out a Last Warrior or Master of
Oz). And it mixes well with Suicide Beatdown. If you
wanted to, you could probably have a deck that mixed
Suicide Beatdown with Cyber Stein OTK and was
focused on Last Turn. XD
I can't really rate this card, because to do so
would be to rate the decktype. Just know that if I
ever have my way, this will be seen winning
Nationals or something.
8/5 for sheer annoyance factor.
0/5 for Art (couldn't they do ANY better?)
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JAELOVE |
Magical Merchant/Roulette Barrel
Rated For: Any Deck needing Light
monsters
I chose today's Card of the day to be
a special, giving affair where each of pojo's COTD
reviewers would pick one of their favorite cards and
review it. I hope you enjoy.
I've actually picked two cards, both
from Magican's Force, both horribly misunderstood
and underrated, both horribly obscure as well, and
both Light types.
To those who need Light fuel for
their Chaos monsters (Sorceror, BLS), Magician of
Faith and Airknight Parshath are not the only
monsters in existence! These two monsters are great.
Advantage F/H:
-- Magical Merchant nets you a
guaranteed spell/trap card for a monster, which is
an absolutely tremendous effect in the right deck.
Most decks run 16 or so monsters to about 24
spell/traps, meaning you won't hurt your deck much
by using this card. It's a great way to get
advantage, plus you can metamorphosize it into
Thousand-Eyes.
8/10
-- Roulette Barrel, on the other
hand, has awesome stats of 1000/2000. It also has a
built in effect of monster removal. A typical
situation is they attack, they lose life points,
then they lose their monster next turn. Great
advantage to this card.
9/10
Best Draw for the Situation:
--
Merchant is great in any phase of play, because in
the beginning he helps build strategy and in the end
he can finish the duel off. If you're losing, or
have a hand clogged with monsters, this card can
help you a whole lot better than Magician of Faith
can.
9/10
-- Roulette Barrel is a great card in
all phases of play as well, because 2000 defense
will keep him preserved forever. Also, 1000 attack
is nothing to scoff at, and the monster removal
effect will take down almost anything capable of
killing him.
8/10
Attributes/Effect:
--
Merchant has terrible stats but one of the best flip
effects in the game. He's also a one star, making
him a dream for Chaos Metamorphosis decks.
9/10
--
Roulette Barrel combines awesome stats with an
awesome effect. There's not much more you can say
than that!
8/10.
Dependability:
-- While not as devastating as
Magician, getting your Merchant change of hearted
can definitely switch the pace of the duel. There
are plenty of effects that can prevent him from
being used, and he might even dump monsters you
don't want to see gone, but generally this guy will
get his effect off and help you.
7/10
--
Roulette Barrel will let you roll a 6 sided dice
twice, meaning you'll have a 1 in 3 chance of
killing their monster. If they have two monsters of
different level on the field, your chances will
increase. It'll also stay on the field a very long
amount of time.
7/10
The Bottom Line:
These are two of the most
underrated/overlooked monsters of all time; give
them a try in your Chaos deck, you'll be very
surprised.
A BAD Score:
Magical
Merchant--
4.15/5
Roulette
Barrel--
4/5
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Tranorix |
Chain Energy
Chain Energy is a personal favorite of mine. I've
built a few decks around it, and all of them worked
a LOT better than they should have. Why? People
don't expect Chain Energy. People don't play against
Chain Energy very often. As a result, people do not
know HOW to combat Chain Energy effectively.
Being a Continuous Spell, it's vulnerable to all of
that evil removal; but no matter! Playing Chain
Energy at the right time will leave your opponent
quite dead. If you manage to set a nice, chainable
Trap and a nice defensive monster first turn, then
drop a Chain Energy, your opponent is GUARANTEED to
lose at least 500 Life Points (unless he draws
Exodia or something...) If he can't remove Chain
Energy, you more or less force him into a situation
where he'll have to be very conservative with his
cards.
Of course, your goal is to prevent this. Using Burn
monsters will make him nervous, and the unskilled
player will immediately try to do whatever he can to
stop your burning him. And if he can t get rid of
Chain Energy, he'll burn himself in the process.
The key to successful use of Chain Energy is to have
a way to defend yourself while not using many cards.
Things like Peten the Dark Clown, Scapegoat, Spirit
Reapers, Reflect Bounders, or perhaps even a Solar
Flare Dragon lock all of them are great assets to
the good Chain Energy Deck.
Just be careful. Know when to play cards. Know when
you need to, and know when you don't. It can just as
easily backfire and hurt you as it can your
opponent, so you should definitely playtest this
deck before using it in a tournament.
Traditional CCCC: 3/5
Traditional Chain Energy Burn: 4/5
Advanced Chain Energy Burn: 5/5
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Merril
Hess |
Thestalos
the Firestorm Monarch
FIRE/Pyro/6 Stars
2400/1000
When this card is Tribute Summoned successfully,
randomly discard 1 card from your opponent's hand.
If the discarded card was a Monster Card, inflict
damage to your opponent's Life Points equal to the
Level of the monster x 100 points.
RDS-EN021
Super Rare
I know it's been a while, but I'm back for now.
Pros:
This is my favorite card mostly because of the name
and because I am a controlling person, so discarding
is always a highlight. His ability won't hit your
opponent for too much, but 400-600 isn't bad. I'd
gladly like to take that much outta my opponent when
I play a creature, but mostly the discarding thing
is always helpful. Keeping my opponent's hand size
down is critical, and this helps me keep it down
with the loss of Duo (Poor Duo, had to get banned).
Anyways, 2400 ATK is nothing to scoff at. Although
he has the same stats as the other monarchs, but
it's still good.
Cons:
He is 6 Stars, being one short to morph into Balter.
That really blows, IMO. I could also accidently hit
a Jinzo in their hand. Yes, they take 600 to the
dome-piece (directly), but they could have a Call of
the Haunted or a Premature Burial ready to go next
turn. That spells pain for me. He also looks too
much like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz for my
tastes, but he's still cool looking.
Overall, here are the ratings for Thestalos the
Firestorm Monarch (Such a cool name!!):
Advanced/Post Ban: 3.5/5.0
Open/Pre-Ban: 3.0/5.0
Overall: 6.5/10.0
**I just added the 2 scores together to get my
overall rating. It's easier than doing and average
in my head.
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Otaku |
Remember, if you think this review is too
long, skip straight to the Ratings and Summary!
Happy Thanksgiving! Sorry I’ve been gone for a while, aside
from the normal class work issues, I’d been
prioritizing the Yu-Gi-Oh site over the other
sections of Pojo I work on, so I tried to focus
on those sections. Also, my sister got married
this weekend to her long time boyfriend. ^_^
Sadly, my computer has been a tad “wonky” so I
found out that it was “Dealer’s Choice” today
when I went to look at the site. So chances
are, this will be going up at least a day late
(so Happy-day-after-Thanksgiving, I guess =P).
I have chosen possibly my favorite card in the entire game.
When Metal Raiders came out, “negation” first
appeared in the form of three cards-Magic Jammer,
Seven Tools of the Bandit, and my pick for
today’s CotD, Solemn Judgment. I was fortunate
to find an almost complete box of Metal Raiders
at a Casey’s (a local chain Gas
Station/Convenience stores) when the set was
first released selling the packs for just $2.00
a piece! Well, I didn’t get my Mirror Force in
that nearly complete box (23 packs!), but I did
get my first Solemn Judgment. I got my next two
by trading away a 1st Edition Toon
Mermaid.
Name : Solemn Judgment
Set Name : Metal Raiders
ID Number : MRD-127
Type : Trap
Sub-Type : Counter-Trap
Effect Text :
Pay half of your Life Points when your opponent
either activates a Magic or Trap Card or summons
a monster (including Special Summon) to negate
the action and destroy the Magic Card, Trap
Card, or summoned monster.
Stats :
While being a Trap has always had something of a
negative image (you have to Set it and wait
until after the End Phase of the turn to activate
them and Jinzo proved quite popular and potent),
that’s the trade off for being able to use them on
either players turn once (once legal to activate).
Solemn Judgment is not just a Trap, but possibly the
most elite of Traps in the American game, the
Counter Trap. Counter Traps are Spell Speed 3; this
means that they chain to any other card (in the
proper situation) and most other cards are
too slow to chain to them. These are excellent
stats, in my opinion. Since being a Quick-Play
Spell card (for example), would lower its Spell
Speed, I really think this is the perfect way for
this card to do its thing. What is its thing?
Effect(s) : Negation. Nearly everything in the game can be negated by Solemn
Judgment, but at the price of half your Life
Points. Of course, early game this tends to be
terrible, but late game, it’s often a bargain.
Also, the halving rounds up, so if you have one Life
Point left, it’s free! XD So, what cannot be negated
by Solemn Judgment? When a Monster is Special
Summoned by the effect of another card, said
Monster’s Special Summoning cannot be negated. You
can, however, negate any Spell or Trap card used in
the Special Summoning. Similarly, you can’t negate
an effect like Kuriboh, as it is used by discarding
said card from hand. You can’t negate the effects
of a Field Spell, though you could negate said Field
Spell when they attempt to put it into play (whether
directly from hand or activating it from a Set).
You cannot negate the effect of a Monster card.
Remember though, you can negate the Summon of a
Monster, and if that would negate the effect, the
effect is negated. For example, if you negate the
normal, Tribute Summon of Mobius the Frost Monarch
with Solemn Judgment, it doesn’t get its effect, as
it was never Summoned. There are also two annoying
Monsters that luck out at the wording of Solemn
Judgment. Since it says to “destroy” the card, if
you use Solemn Judgment to negate the initial
Summons of Dark Necrofear and Vampire Lord, their
secondary effects will still kick in. At least they
are still considered to have never been properly
Summoned and are thus illegal targets for revival
(aside from their own effects).
Right now, this card is sounding pretty bad, eh?
Remember, anything more or less “normal” can be
negated by Solemn Judgment. I will explain further
in the Uses and Combinations section.
Uses and
Combinations :
Using this card requires quick math and a quick
evaluation of the game current status. For example,
if my opponent activates Ceasefire and my Life
Points are lower than [the known number of effect
monsters in play multiplied by 500], then I should
most definitely negate that, or else its game. ;)
Now, that’s usually the obvious timing for the
card. Less obvious is when your opponent goes to
use Waboku. Now, due the math and evaluate the
scenario. If you are going to win if the attack
goes through, and they have nothing set or in hand,
you negate the Waboku for the win. Again, there is
no question there. If they have cards in hand, ask
yourself “How likely are they to run Kuriboh?”, “How
likely are they to have Kuriboh in hand?” and “How
much will it hurt me if they have Kuriboh in hand?”
As long as you aren’t making yourself extremely
vulnerable (your life points are dipping below
2000), in this scenario, it would still be worth
negating the Waboku. Remember to adjust for obvious
exceptions (they run Chaos but you haven’t seen BLS
yet).
As
of now, I haven’t really gotten into why to run
Solemn Judgment. After all, there are other cards
for the scenarios I mentioned. Why run such an
expensive card?
First, notice that it replaces multiple cards.
That’s why I started running it back in the day:
even in the days of Metal Raiders, who had room for
even two each of Magic Jammer and Seven Tools of the
Bandit? It also functions as a Horn of Heaven you
always have the option of using: you can always pay
to negate (though you may not always want to). It’s
a very versatile card.
The
second reason to use it is summed up in a single
word: fear. Remember Mirror Force? Most players I
know, good or bad were always weary of running into
Mirror Force. Why? Because it could ruin your
entire offense. Mirror Force was only a single
card! The odds were pretty low that it would be the
only thing set. Still, we feared it. Late game,
experienced players know that you worry about Magic
Cylinder (a card I don’t normally run in
Traditional) because your Life Points are low enough
that instead of being a burn card, its effect is
“You attack, I win”. Solemn Judgment is similar.
When you run at least one, your opponent will always
worry that you can negate something important.
Imagine setting up a complicated combo, only for the
key component to be negated, rendering the rest
useless. It’s the stuff of nightmares. It also
matters when, as stated, a single card is all that
stands between victory and defeat.
If
you run multiples and are smart enough to know when
to play them, people will fear them. From personal
experience, I have found that while I am really just
an “average” player with a penchant for running
decks that aren’t the current “thing”, people who
remember me fear the Judgments.
Now, to finish this section, let me quickly mention
that this actually combos with certain cards to
really be the backbone of most decks. First we have
Suicide Beatdown, which purposely burns most of its
LP because it knows how to capitalize on
that-primarily Megamorph. Last Turn decks also
benefit from Solemn Judgment to low Life Points
rapidly. Finally, some life gain decks will love it
with Life Absorbing Machine; two and you may break
even for negating something on your turn; three and
it can get quite sick. Imagine negating a Waboku
for 4000 LP, and then next turn gaining 6000LP.
Ratings
Traditional :
3.75/5-I really believe this card should see more
play. Do I think every deck needs three? No. I do
think every deck should main deck one and most
should have another one or two side-decked. There
are so many powerful single cards that having a
single means of negating any one of them is potent.
Advanced :
4/5-Even more potent here. Now that Traps are
seeing more play, you’ll want a way to help protect
your own while sabotaging your opponent’s. Most
means of Trap negation leave a lot to be desired.
Trap Jammer is only during the Battle Phase. Hey, a
lot of people will use Waboku during your Draw Phase
if you already have a significant attack force
ready. Seven Tools costs 1000 LP, so late game,
when you need it most, it can kill you. Solemn
Judgment can also be wonderful bait. If you are
finding you don’t really need it, set it anyway.
Your opponent will likely think they have put the
hurt on you when they nail it with that precious
MST.
Limited : 5/5-If you are somehow pulling this in Limited, it’s great.
You can almost always make use of it (it negates
Summons, after all), and if they did pull a nice
Monster, Spell, or Trap, imagine their face when it
is negated.
Summary
Great power at a great price. Note that the second
“great” is being used in terms of size: half your
Life Points is usually pretty hefty. Still, you are
getting an incredibly versatile card that can negate
all but an annoying handful of cards in the game.
Since it has so many uses, it means running fewer
cards in the deck, and a smaller deck makes most
players happy. Just remember to do the math to know
whether to negate or not. Winning or at least not
using is always worth it. ;)
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